1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multi-address calling system, and more particularly, to a multi-address calling system in a facsimile device capable of effecting multi-address calling with increased accessibility.
2. Description of the Related Art
A known facsimile device can transmit picture data of characters, photographs, etc., printed on paper by using a communication line. Currently, this picture communication can be conducted through public telephone lines, and thus such facsimile equipment is now widely used in the office automation (OA) field.
In such facsimile equipment, recently, many of these machines have a multi-address calling function by which the information printed on one or more sheets of paper is read and stored in a picture memory, and is then transmitted to a number of destinations.
In a conventional multi-address calling system, all pages to be transmitted are first read, compressed and stored in a picture memory, and then only after the storing operation is finished, a pre-procedure, the transmission of the picture data, and a post-procedure are carried out for the first destination.
Therefore, the start of the picture transmission is delayed especially when there is a large number of pages to be stored. Thus, the availability of equipment of this type is low.
In another conventional multi-address calling system disclosed in for example Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 63-36651, published on Feb. 17, 1988, filed by Toshiba Corporation, the reading, compression, and storing of the picture data are effected in parallel with the transmission of the picture data to the first destination. In this conventional system, the pre-procedure, the transmission of the picture data, and the post-procedure for the first destination are started without waiting for the reading, compression, and storing operation of the to end. This conventional example, however, still has a disadvantage in that there are periods of time when the device is not available for use because the reading, compression, and storing of each page are synchronous with the transmission of the corresponding page to the first destination. Namely, when another set of pages is to be transmitted, the user must wait until the previous set of pages is completely transmitted to the first destination. When the previous set of pages is large in volume, the user must wait for a long time.